


M T

by LukefonFabre (MagitekUnit05953234)



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Cloning Blues, Depression, Filling In the Gaps, Gen, Trauma, post absorption gate, theoretically canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 09:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18258752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/LukefonFabre
Summary: “Can you not live unless you were born for some purpose?”No, Luke thinks now, laying in bed with his arm draped over his eyes and the window wide open.I can’t.





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**Author's Note:**

> I haven't played TotA in multiple years but I love it a lot.

 

**REMDAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 30**

When Luke returns home to the manor in Baticul, his mother sweeps him into her arms and cries.

“I'm so glad you're safe,” she weeps into his shoulder, and he slowly, slowly put his arms around her.

He can't remember ever hugging her before. This is… new. Unfamiliar in every way.

When Luke meets eyes with his father over the top of his mother's head, he sees nothing in them. Not relief, not concern, not anger. Just nothing.

That's more familiar.

**IFRITDAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 32**

The novelty of being in his old home wears off after a few days. With his mother back to bed after a dizzy spell and his father off doing whatever the hell nobles do everyday that he never quite managed to spell out for Luke, Luke is left to wander the manor looking for something, anything to occupy his time with. It is a hobby he is well-acquainted with, seeing as there was precious little to do in Luke’s youth other than attend lessons and drift through the halls. It didn't get much more interesting in Luke’s absence. After spending a little over half a year in the real world, the thought of spending his days in this manor memorizing every speck of dust in the air makes Luke feel sick.

Still. He wanders. If he left now, disappearing once more into the night because he knows his father would never approve an outing for an outing’s sake, the worry might make his mother’s condition worsen again.

He can't do that to her.

**LUNADAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 38**

When night falls upon Auldant, Luke stays awake.

He never did get over the way his sword sounded, piercing the flesh of ~~another~~ a human being. His dreams don't let him forget it.

When exhaustion catches up with him, he dozes well into the afternoon.

Servants whisper when he rises late into the day, pale and red around the eyes. He takes the blessing for what it is. Much better to have them talk about his sleeping habits than other, less savory parts of himself.

Yes, it really is a blessing.

**REMDAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 44**

Two weeks into his stay at home, Luke stops to examine a portrait hung in the drawing room that he rarely ever thought to look at much. It’s the generic painting you see for many royal toddlers, somehow stuffed into suffocating formal dress at the age of five or so and made to stand in front of their parents long enough for a painter to hash out their likenesses on canvas.

Luke swallows thickly, reaching out to touch the painting's gilded frame. All this time he thought…

Ah. Well. It doesn't really matter.

**SLYPHDAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 48**

Luke wishes Guy were here.

Or any of his friends at all.

**LUNADAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 52**

“It’s a little creepy, isn’t it?” Anais, a maid who has been in Duke Fabre’s service for as long as Luke can remember, is in her usual spot, chatting with the other maids as they all collectively ignore their duties for a while. As a kid, Luke made a habit of walking by when he knew they would be gathered here so he could hear anything about the outside world, even if it was just idle gossip.

He’s beginning to wish this was a habit he had outgrown.

“You’d never know just by looking at it,” Nora replies, her voice hushed but not enough to be inaudible from where Luke has sequestered himself behind several potted plants and a grandfather clock. “Though, I guess that was the point, wasn’t it?”

“Surely,” Isla is facing away, so she’s the hardest to hear. She always did have very clear diction, though. She served as Luke’s language tutor when he  ~~returned to~~ was brought to Kimlasca with no memories and the basic functionality of a newborn. “I should have realized, you know. Amnesia doesn’t wipe out your first language or how to walk. It just doesn’t. If it really were Luke, it would have still been able to do all of that without us teaching it.”

“Do you think His Grace is going to get rid of it once Luke returns?” Nora asks after a moment. “I mean, it’s whole point is to take Luke’s place, right? So once he’s back, it won’t be needed anymore.”

“Maybe,” Anais shrugs. “It’s not like it was very good at much of anything anyway. No point in keeping a shattered plate, after all.”

Luke doesn’t let the maids in his room after that.

**SYLPHDAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 55**

The Absorption Gate occupies more of Luke’s time than he should allow. He knows that it probably isn’t a good idea to ponder on the way he murdered someone who, despite his monstrous purposes, was the closest thing Luke had to a real father, but.

Luke can’t really control the whimsy of his grey matter.

“Can you not live unless you were born for some purpose?” Van had asked, barely bothering to look at them all as he spoke, his eyes glinting coldly as he tore Luke’s cries for meaning apart.

 _No,_ Luke thinks now, laying in bed with his arm draped over his eyes and the window wide open. _I can’t_.

**GNOMEDAY, IFRIT—REDECAN 57**

Luke runs through his training forms in the courtyard. _Twenty, forty-two, sixteen_.

He practices his artes. _Steel. Raging Thrust. Rending Havoc._

He tries to forget the scent of blood. The feeling of obliterating a city into nothingness.

_Seven, twelve, twenty-five._

_Guardian. Fang Blade. Coil._

He wishes someone would at least send him a letter.

**UNDINEDAY, GNOME—REDECAN 3**

His mother asks him how Asch is doing, but she doesn’t call him that.

Luke says he doesn’t know.

Duchess Fabre doesn’t have much to say after that, so Luke leaves the room and climbs up to the roof of the manor through his bedroom window. He dangles his feet off the edge and watches the clouds travel across the sky, white and soft.

**LORELEIDAY, GNOME—REDECAN 12**

Mieu doesn’t spend a lot of time in the manor. He comes and goes, telling Luke about the state of the wilderness outside Baticul whenever he pops in and usually leaving the next time the moon is hanging high among the stars.

Apparently spending so much time indoors feels somewhat suffocating for a cheagle.

Luke understands.

**LUNADAY, GNOME—REDECAN 14**

Luke is not Luke, but he tries.

If Asch won’t return home, Luke will become what everyone calls him anyway.

It’s easier, isn’t it?

Didn’t Luke want to change?

**SYLPHDAY, GNOME—REDECAN 18**

Luke trims his bangs with a pair of sewing shears he picked up while lingering in Guy’s room.

Red strands of hair fall into the washbasin with each snip.

It’s funny— Luke never noticed that the Kimlascan banner over Guy’s bed was folded over, obscuring the symbol of his enemy.

Luke wonders if Guy is happier in Malkuth.

**SYLPHDAY GNOME—REDECAN 25**

For a few days, Luke doesn’t eat. He doesn’t feel that bad from it, actually. He knows you’re supposed to.

Maybe it’s because he’s not human.

**REMDAY, GNOME—REDECAN 28**

“Were you still asleep?” Duke Fabre asks. He tosses the words over his shoulder, in that moment so similar to Van that Luke can't stand it.

“...I’m sorry,” Luke knows he can do better. He’s trying so hard to be what they want. He’s just tired of being...

“It’s been a month since you came home,” the Duke grows a little angrier with each word. “Princess Natalia is traveling the world on official business, and look at you!”

He’s so tired, but he’s trying…

“Start living a little more like a member of House Fabre.”

He’s _trying_...

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

Luke who is not Luke falls as the floor crumbles away beneath him.

**Author's Note:**

> "I don't even really have a name. Or a family. I'm empty."


End file.
